Pakistan is a country thatcelebrated
Minorities Day in Canada - because it was too unsafe in Pakistan.
That alone is enough for anyone to get a decent idea of how bad the situation
is for Pakistan's minorities. Pakistan's minorities have a long history of
persecution, sometimes at the hands of Muslim hardliners and sometimes at the
hands of the very State they pay taxes to protect their life and property.
Today it seems there is little tono
place for Pakistani minoritiesin the country
that they helped create 66 years ago.

The trouble for Pakistani minorities
started way back when Ahmaddiya Muslims were declared heretics and a huge
persecution campaign was launched against them in Pakistan, the most memorable
being the anti-Ahmaddiya riots of 1953. Jamaat-e-Islami was one of the notable
parties that participated in the persecution campaign against Ahmaddiya Muslims
and is still aggressively anti-Ahmaddiya today.

Ahmaddiya Muslims were declared
non-Muslims through an amendment in the constitution which gave Islamists the
green signal to persecute Ahmaddiya Muslims, no questions asked. Another
amendment was made in 1984 which restricted the freedom of the religion of
Ahmaddiya Muslims even more. Today Ahmaddiya Muslims can face jail time (if
they're not lynched by a mob before that) just for identifying as Muslim or
simply greeting someone with 'Assalam-u-Alaikum', an Islamic greeting. Most
recently Pakistani
police demolished domes of Ahmaddiya mosquesin the central
Punjab province. And this is nothing new. Pakistani police and State actors
routinely deface Ahmaddiya graves and mosques. The grave of Pakistan's only
Noble Laureate Dr
Abdus Salamwas also defaced
because he was an Ahmaddiya Muslim. The oppression that the Pakistani media
accuses Indian forces of in Kashmir is nothing compared to what the Pakistani
State puts its minorities through every day. But it goes unnoticed by the
Pakistani media as it avoids reporting on the persecution of Ahmaddiyas out of
fear of retaliation from Islamists.

In short, Pakistan treats its Ahmaddiya
Muslims and other minorities in a similar way to how Nazi Germany treated Jews
and gypsies. Today Ahmaddiya Muslims have to fight State-sponsored
discrimination and persecution. They also have to put up with the abuse, threatsand violence from
Muslims of other sects.

While the Pakistani State has been busy
persecuting Ahmaddiya Muslims, it has also been busy protecting Pakistan's
controversial blasphemy laws from any criticism or change. The blasphemy laws
play a huge role in the persecution of Pakistani minorities where these laws
are often misused. Between 1986 and 2007, Pakistani authorities charged 647
people with blasphemy
offences. Fifty percent of these were non-Muslims, who
represent only 3% of Pakistan's population. No judicial execution for blasphemy
has ever occurred in Pakistan, but 20 of those charged were murdered. By 2010,
the total number of people charged under these laws had grown to about 1,274.
The most recent caseof blasphemy
occurred in Karachi where a Christian man was mercilessly slaughtered by a
fellow Muslim worker for allegedly blaspheming against Islam's Prophet.

The situation for Christians is just as
bad. The most recentcaseof violence
against Christians in Pakistan happened at 11:30am on Sunday, 22nd September
when twin suicide blasts outside a130-year-old
Anglican church left 81 dead and over 100 injured. Many victims were children
and women. Pope Francis called
it an act of hate. Pakistan quickly declined into a three
day mourning period when two of the biggest secular political parties MQM and
ANP joined the call for mourning. Protests alsoeruptedin different
parts of Pakistan against the attack on the Church.

But all this will do nothing to help
improve the situation of minorities in Pakistan where the government is
desperate to engage in 'peace talks' with the barbaric Taliban, despite public
outrage. The Pakistani media routinely uses racist and derogatory language for
Pakistani minorities. After the bombing of the church in Peshawar, a Pakistani
channel ended up calling Christians 'street sweepers'. The news channel's
Twitter account latertweetedan explanation
but didn't apologise. Hindus, Shi'ite Muslims and Sikhs also face more or less
similar levels of persecution in Pakistan simply on the basis of their
religion.

The 22nd of September was a big day for
Islamists. The weekend was one of the deadliest as Islamists attacked three
different places at different times and managed to kill a glowing number of
infidels. From Nairobito Peshawar to Baghdad, Islamists
slaughtered left and right people they deemed undesirable. In Nairobi, Muslims were
escorted to safety during an attack by Islamist terrorists, leaving non-Muslims
to be targeted. One non-Muslim
was asked the name of Prophet Muhammad’s mother. He didn’t
know the answer and received a free bullet in the head. And you thought
shopping was boring?

The situation in Pakistan is only a small
reminder of a far bigger threat the world faces today: Islamist terrorism.
Those who tiptoe around the reality of Islamic fanaticism and blame Western
imperialism and drone strikes for Islamist terror are part of the problem, not
part of the solution. It's time for the world to wake up and face the reality -
which it has to face sooner or later.

Christian community in Pakistan protest in streets after a church attacked by suicide bombers in Peshawar left scores dead.